DESCRIPTION (Adapted from applicant's abstract and specific aims): This application requests support to bring together two relatively diverse groups, physicists and physicians, in a special symposium entitled "Interfacial Medicine" at the Eighth International Conference on Organized Molecular Films. The symposium is designed to foster collaboration between these two groups, who have a generally unrecognized set of common interests in the interfacial properties of lipid membranes. The symposium and conference will be held at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, California from August 24-29, 1997. The conference center is relatively self-contained and most of the conference participants will be staying and having their meals on-site, allowing for plenty of formal and informal discussion. The main thrust of the symposium will be physical and chemical studies of lung surfactants, in monolayers, multilamellar bodies, etc.; with a special emphasis on replacement surfactants for treatment of Respiratory Distress Syndrome. The International Conferences on Organized Molecular Films, of which this is the 8th in a biannual series, have in the past dealt primarily with the physics and chemistry of organized molecular films and supramolecular assemblies. The conferences have generally been devoted to fundamental studies of the interfacial science and technology of Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) and self-assembled films, especially those with optical or electronic applications. Typical attendance is in the range of 600-700.